1998 Document-Based Question (DBQ)

Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent
essay that integrates your interpretation of Documents A-H and your
knowledge of the period referred to in the question. High scores will be
earned only by essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents
and draw on outside knowledge of the period.

Question: With respect to the federal Constitution, the Jeffersonian
Republicans are usually characterized as strict constructionists who were
opposed to the broad constructionism of the Federalists. To what extent
was this characterization of the two parties accurate during the presidencies
of Jefferson and Madison?

In writing your answer, use the documents and your knowledge of the
period 1801-1817.

Document A

Source: Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, a future member
of Jefferson's cabinet, 13 August 1800

I believe [we] shall obtain. . .a majority in the legislature of the
United States, attached to the preservation of the federal Constitution,
according to its obvious principles and those on which it was known to
be received; attached equally to the preservation to the states of those
rights unquestionably remaining with them; . . .in short, a majority firm
in all those principles which we have espoused, and the Federalists have
opposed uniformly. . . . It [our country] can never be harmonious and solid
while so respectable a portion of its citizens support principles which
go directly to a change of the federal Constitution, to sink the state
governments, consolidate them into one, and to monarchise that.

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single
government. . . .

The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best that
the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united
as to everything respecting foreign nations.

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the
Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines,
discipline, or exercises. . . . Certainly no power to prescribe any religious
exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated
to the general [federal] government. It must then rest with the states,
as far as it can be in any human authority. . . .

I am aware that the practice of my predecessors [prescribing a day of
fasting and prayer] may be quoted. . . . Be this as it may, everyone must
act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that
civil powers alone have been given to the President of the U.S. and no
authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.

Source: Daniel Webster, Federalist from New Hampshire,
in a speech on a conscription bill, to the House of Representatives, 9
December 1814

The [Madison] administration asserts the right to fill the ranks of
the regular army by compulsion. . . . Where is it written in the Constitution,
in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children
from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to
fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of the
government may engage it? . . . Who will show me any constitutional injunction
which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything
valuable in life, and even life itself, . . . whenever the purposes of
an ambitious and mischievous government may require it?. . .

If the secretary of war has proved the right of Congress to enact a
law enforcing a draft of men out of the militia into the regular army,
he will at any time be able to prove quite as clearly that Congress has
power to create a dictator.

Document E

Source: Report and Resolutions of the Hartford Convention,
4 January 1815

Resolved, That the following amendments of the constitution of
the United States be recommended to the states represented as foresaid,
to be proposed by them for adoption by the state legislatures, and in such
cases as may be deemed expedient by a convention chosen by the people of
each state. . . .

Second. No new state shall be admitted into the Union by Congress,
in virtue of the power granted by the constitution, without the concurrence
of two thirds of both houses.

Third. Congress shall not have the power to lay any embargo on
the ships or vessels of the citizens of the United States, . . . for more
than sixty days.

Fourth. Congress shall not have power, without concurrence of
two thirds of both houses, to interdict the commercial intercourse between
the United States and any foreign nation, or the dependencies thereof.

Document F

Source: John Randolph, a Democratic Republican congressman
from Virginia, in a speech to the House on the proposed tariff of 1816

[W]e have another proof that the present government have renounced the
true republican principles of Jefferson's administration on which they
raised themselves to power, and that they have taken up, in their stead,
those of John Adams . . . . [T]heir principle now is old Federalism, vamped
up into something bearing the superficial appearance of republicanism .
. . . Sir, I am convinced that it would be impolitic, as well as unjust,
to aggravate the burdens of the people for the purpose of favoring the
manufacturers; for this government created and gave power to Congress to
regulate commerce and equalize duties [tariffs] on the whole of the United
States, and not to lay a duty [tariff] but with a steady eye to revenue
. . . .

Document G

Source: Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 12 July
1816

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem
them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe
to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what
they did to be beyond amendment. . . . I am certainly not an advocate for
frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. . . . But I know
also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress
of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as
new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions
change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also
and keep pace with the times.

[I have] considered the bill this day presented to me entitled 'An act
to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,' and which
sets apart and pledges funds. . . for constructing roads and canals, and
improving the navigation of water courses. . . . The power to regulate
commerce among the several states cannot include a power to construct roads
and canals. . . . I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and
canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in
the national legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal
advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not
expressly given by the Consti-tution, and believing that it can not be
deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction
and a reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent
success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between
the general [federal] and the state governments. . . I have no option but
to withhold my signature from it . . .